


Failing Upwards

by cassievalentine



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Adoption, F/M, Fertility Issues, Kid Fic, OMC - Freeform, Steggy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8182945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassievalentine/pseuds/cassievalentine
Summary: Privately, she wonders if her mother was right and she waited too long.
   Privately, he wonders if this is the trade off from the serum working.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally inspired by the prompt "Jealousy" from an anon on Tumblr. I honestly don't know how I got from jealousy to this fic.

When they get settled back in Brooklyn after the war, her career carries on relatively uninterrupted with the SSR but he flounders. There’s not really a need for a super soldier at the moment and the commercial visual art trade is flooded with artists looking for work now that they’re not needed for painting posters. Eventually, he turns his attention to working with kids. He teaches a (somewhat over priced) art class in Manhattan a couple of times a week to fund a couple of other classes for the struggling kids in Brooklyn. He soon finds his footing again and she can’t help but smile and get wrapped up in the stories he tells her about the kids.

A little more than a year after getting home, they marry, get used to sharing a space with each other in civilian life and start tentatively making plans for the future. (An actual house, studio space, promotion.)  


“Maybe a kid or two?” he asks and her train of thought comes to a screeching halt. She had never been particularly interested in kids and had never felt the need to have any herself. She’d been more than happy with her work and when he had pushed his way in, that had been ok too.  


“Something to think about?” she finally answers though she’s pretty sure her answer sounds more like a question than a statement. His hand searches out hers and they hang on to each other.  


“We don’t have to,” he finally says and though he tries to hide it, she can hear whispers of disappointment. She squeezes his hand but doesn’t answer either way.  


**

She sighs when she feels the familiar cramp right behind her pubic bone and feels another sliver of disappointment place itself in her heart. They’d been trying for months, and still nothing. 

The more she’d thought about his want of a child, the more the idea had grown on her, of having this tiny person that was half her and half him and nearly a year after they first discussed it, she’d started to want it too.

Knowing there’s nothing else to be done, she pulls on a pair of well worn sleep pants and one of his plaid flannel shirts and wanders out to the living room. Disappointment flashes across his own face for a fraction of a second before he repositions himself and lets her curl up in his lap.  


**

Another few months go by and suddenly they’ve been trying for a year with no results.

Privately, she wonders if her mother was right and she waited too long.  


Privately, he wonders if this is the trade off from the serum working.  


**

She slips quietly into the basement room of the church where he’s teaching a boisterous group of children, most of who don’t speak English, about mixing colours and how you can paint anything with only red, blue and yellow. She knows it’s because funds are always tight at the end of the month, but neither he not the kids seem to care. They’re all wearing a man’s shirt, buttons in the back, with the sleeves rolled up. Some of them were his, one’s he’d used for painting, but she doesn’t recognize most of them. 

One of the smaller girls notices her and offers a huge smile and a wave before rushing over and grabbing her hand. She can feel the paint squishing against her skin, but she lets the girl pull her over and show off her picture, pointing out various features in broken English. As soon as the rest of the class realizes she’s there, they all take their turn smearing paint on her hands as they lead her to their pictures and explain them as best they can. She laughs and smiles and praises them all for their good work.  


Even as an unexplained knot begins to form in her gut.  


As parents start arriving to collect the kids, she can’t help but notice mothers with a toddler in their skirts, a baby in their arms and another on the way. By the time the class has emptied, she knows exactly what the knot is and why it’s now as heavy as a rock.  


“What’s wrong? Are you ok?” he asks, catching sight of the look on her face. She feels herself starting to crumble but she digs deep and steels herself as best she can.  


“I’m fine,” she answers, rather unconvincingly, while moving to the opposite side of the room to start packing up supplies. When she moves to wash her hands, she catches sight of the perfect, bright red hand print Talia left on the back of her hand.  


It takes a suspiciously long time for her to wash all the paint away.  


**

“Maybe it’s just not for us,” he finally says one day after two years of trying and no baby and she finally breaks. Without hesitation, he pulls her into his arms as great, heaving sobs wrack her body, washing away all the frustration, disappointment and jealousy of the last year. It feels like years before she finally calms and she can’t help but feel embarrassed at her loss of control.She’s about to apologize, but after seeing that he’s in about the same state, she doesn’t bother. She just wraps her arms around him tighter and hangs on.

**

She avoids picking him up after class and when the kids ask where she is, he just tells them she’s working very hard. He tells her stories about what they both did during the war and smiles as they all listen to him with rapt attention and wide eyes.

**

“Imah sick,” Talia tells him one week, her words heavily accented. Talia and her mother had been among the lucky few to attain refuge in the US during the war. He assumes her father is gone, given that her mother never wears anything but black.

“You should make her a beautiful picture,” he tells the little girl, leading her to a blank page. “Something to make her feel better.” The little girl nods but and he can’t help but wonder what she’s not, or can’t, tell him about what’s really going on at home.  


**

He watches her closely over the next few classes, his frown deepening a little every time she comes to class a little paler, a little thinner and a little dirtier. When she comes in with a hacking cough he decides enough is enough and at the end of class, he pulls her aside.

“Talia, where’s Imah?” he asks, dropping to the floor and sitting in front of her. Her big brown eyes immediately drop to the floor and she fidgets with her fingers. “Imah met?” he tries. He’s picked up a smattering of Hebrew, Italian, Polish and a handful of other languages since he started teaching the art classes. Talia holds herself together for all of 3 seconds before she bursts into tears. He wraps her up in his arms and holds on until she calms down. It then takes him almost 40 minutes to put together that her mother died two weeks ago and the neighbours have been doing what they can, but no one can take the girl in.  


He quickly stands, wraps his scarf around her, drops his hat on her head and gets her to take him home. He spends almost an hour in the Temple before an agreement is worked out with the Elders and the Rabbi.

**

“Where on earth have you been?” she asks as soon as he opens the door and steps into the apartment. 

“You remember Talia, right?” he asks, adjusting his hold on the little girl. She looks between him and the little girl for a moment before she turns and moves into the kitchen to put together a small plate. They leave the girl to eat while he explains everything and when he’s done, they both turn back to look at the girl who is folding the bread butter side together and slipping it into her pocket.  


“You make up the couch and find her something to wear. I’ll deal with a bath,” she finally says and he can’t help but smile as he heads to the linen closet to find sheets.  


**

A year full of tears and laughter passes and she has to wonder how she had once never wanted children. She loves Talia more than she can describe and loves him even more for bringing the little girl into their lives. One day, when he brings home a tiny boy named Alexei, who’s in worse shape than Talia had been, she simply gives him a look before fixing a plate and leaving him at the table with Talia. She gets the bath ready, he makes up the couch and the next day they start seriously looking for that house.


End file.
